Building an off-grid house for zero dollars

Meet the dynamic duo building a house for $0 off the back of a tipsy whim. 

For 19-year-olds Rachel Ware and Jarryd Sime, from East Gippsland in Victoria, a light-hearted idea on a night out to construct an entire house with zero dollars has become a project that now takes up their weekends and earned them a loyal online following. 

The vision: an off-grid home built entirely by their own efforts, with zero dollars spent on materials and labour.

Coined the @0dollarbuild on TikTok, Rachel and Jarryd's bio reads: "Just tryna see if it's possible to build a house for free." 

The pair are building their home on a block of land along Ninety Mile Beach that Rachel previously saved up to purchase on her own.

Rachel is currently studying and working in hospitality and as a nanny, and Jarryd is a first-year carpenter apprentice and applies all his knowledge and skills to the project.

"We didn't start filming it for TikTok, we were filming it for my grandma because she wanted to see the process," Rachel says. 

"We were like, 'Why don't we randomly post it on TikTok?' not knowing that anyone would see it." 

That first video of the zero-dollar build has amassed 1.5 million views. Now a following of over 70,000 people are keen to see where Rachel and Jarryd's journey goes.

The pair are only seven weeks in and will begin construction soon.

They collaborate every day by giving each other ideas over text, each doing their own research about building elements of the house. Jarryd's boss also helps provide advice and expertise.

We spoke to Rachel and Jarryd to find out their tips for building on a budget.

Scavenge online marketplaces and kerbsides

Rachel and Jarryd are keen on putting materials that would otherwise become hard rubbish in the dump to good use in their project, saving money and the environment.

"The majority of time we've just been on Facebook marketplace, Gumtree or on nature strips," Rachel says.

"We've also had a lot of people throwing things out, saying 'Hey, put it to good use if you need it'."

Rachel and Jarryd have managed to gather everything from a front door to 20 bags of insulation through contacting and negotiating with people online.

They say it's super important to look below the surface level and do some deep digging online, where you can often find giveaways for next to nothing, or in Rachel and Jarryd's case, zero dollars.

Try messaging sellers with a summary of your situation to see what you can get out of it — with nothing to lose, and door frames and packs upon packs of insulation to gain.

Document your project

As Rachel and Jarryd have found, sharing your project on a platform like TikTok can help with sourcing contacts and materials. 

While social media comes with its fair share of snarky remarks and questionable comments, you never know what kind people are out there waiting to help you out.

By documenting each stage of their project on TikTok, Rachel and Jarryd have built up a bank of contacts they can reach out to when they need materials, advice and even voluntary manual labour, in exchange for a shout-out for their involvement in the project.

"There's been so many people contacting us about helping build it and giving us things," Rachel says. 

A Victorian home-building company even reached out to them and supplied materials they would have otherwise discarded in exchange for a shout-out to their TikTok audience. 

Call around local businesses for offcuts

It is a hard grind getting in contact with loads of people over social media and online sites in order to find the supplies needed to crack on — for a more in-person conversation, Rachel and Jarryd have found a lot of success contacting demolition sites and existing construction sites all around town.

From just driving around nearby suburbs and approaching sites to have a chat, Rachel and Jarryd have managed to strike deals where they complete the demolition themselves in exchange for keeping the wood they take down. 

"Normally they tell us we can keep the wood we take down, so we're doing free labour for them and getting the wood we need in return," Rachel says.

Have patience and a positive attitude

Rachel and Jarryd's journey hasn't all been plain sailing. There's been crashed cars, supply shortages, hate comments and everything in between.

"There's a timber shortage at the moment so it's hard to get any," Jarryd says.

"We can't continue building until we rack up enough timber."

However, by taking the project day by day and viewing it as an adventure instead of a chore, the pair alleviate themselves from time pressure and go on searching for supplies until they find enough timber to continue construction.

"We're doing this project in our free time as a hobby — normally we're both free on Sundays, so we tend to go on a little adventure or a road trip to get supplies and get dinner as well," Rachel says. 

Focus on your 'why'

For Rachel and Jarryd, the project centres around a desire to have property ownership under their belts early on in life in a property market which presents a pretty bleak future. 

The idea of providing future generations with a beachside holiday home and having a place to go is something that keeps the pair motivated. 

Seven weeks into their joint adventure, Rachel and Jarryd's highlights include meeting people and learning about the "real world", taking down buildings in the demo phase and the fact that the build has brought them closer.

The pair hope to have the house finished by the end of the year or into the beginning of 2022. 

And once that's done? To Rachel and Jarryd, the world is their zero-dollar oyster.

"We've had this conversation. If this does pan out the way we want, we'd love to keep the zero-dollar journey alive — not buying another block of land, but maybe buying a van and renovating that for zero dollars," Rachel says.